"You do realise you live in Providence, so it will be a long way to come and rescue me from a bad date!"
I took a sip of the coffee trying to think of a way to make her agree to this. Seventeen year old me trying to set up her twenty-eight year old aunt. "How about you make your first date on a weekend when I’m here, then I can happen to stroll by and if it’s not working out, you can see me and have an excuse to bail?" I suggested.
She stood there looking at me like I was an idiot, but I could tell she was thinking about it. I imagined she was pretty lonely up here at times, so was maybe thinking the idea of a boyfriend wasn’t such a bad one.
As if to fortify herself, she took a sip of coffee, ran her fingers through her hair and said, "Ok, what the hell, let’s try it."
So that’s what we did, we posted Selena’s profile at www.theselonelyhearts.com mainly because they offered a four month free trial, so really she had nothing to lose anyway.
If only that had been true.
∞
The week after Luke’s concert, I find a CD waiting in my locker, another cupcake sitting on top of it, almost like it’s enticing me. When I take Luke his morning coffee, I hold it up to him and ask, "A mixed tape?"
He smiles at me and says, "No, it’s actually a recording of our stuff, thought maybe you might like it?" It almost looks as though he’s blushing now.
As I look at the CD in my hand, I wonder just how good they really are. "You guys have an album?"
Yeah, Luke is definitely blushing now, as he keeps smiling at me. "No, I mean we paid to record one once, just as a potential demo, but to be honest, it’s pretty basic. You’ll see when you listen, the sound isn’t great, but you know…." He does that thing where he runs his hand over his hair again. "I just thought you might like it, you seemed to like it the other night," he finishes quietly.
Watching Luke, I can see he’s looking at me intently now. His eyes are very dark, he isn’t blushing anymore, but he’s watching me, waiting for my reaction. It makes me nervous, him looking at me like this and I can already feel a blush creeping up my own cheeks now, my heart beating slightly faster than normal.
"Thanks," is all I can say at first, looking at the CD of his music that I’m holding. "And you’re right, I did really like your music, you guys are, um…" I look back at him gesturing with the CD in my hand as though this will make sense to him, "…really good."
He laughs a little now. "Thanks Ash, I’m glad you came along."
As I stand there looking at him sipping his coffee, I wonder again, how he even knew I was there. "I actually didn’t think you’d seen me that night?"
There’s that hand over the hair again. "I saw you," he says quietly, taking another sip of his coffee, his eyes watching me the whole time.
Yep, heart is definitely going faster now.
We both stand there in silence, just drinking our coffees and half watching each other. It all feels a little strange. I know that I’m nervous and I’m pretty sure he is too, although I don’t really know why. I’m also not sure what to think of Luke’s gift, the CD. It’s true I did really like their music, but is that why he gave it to me.
Why is he being so nice to me?
∞
The fourth guy that contacted Selena was the one she ended up going out with. We both had a good laugh looking through all the guys that posted on the site, but when it came to going through the ones who specifically contacted her, we tried to be a little bit more serious. That wasn’t always so easy.
I’d come up the weekend after Valentine’s Day so we could go through them. She said she’d had four emails but was too scared to look at them until she had some moral support. I was glad she thought of me.
Mystery guy number one drove trucks around the country and was basically looking for a pit stop every time he dropped by Boston. He seemed very serious about the whole thing although he was open about all the other cities he had women lined up in. I guess that’s something, but he still went straight to the deleted pile. Mystery guy number two had a couple of kids, although he said he was divorced.
Selena wasn’t anti-kids, but as she said, "It’s not what I’m looking for right now, so yeah it’s mean, but no thanks."
I was secretly glad about that as I wasn’t quite prepared to share her that much yet either. Mystery guy number three, was in a word, weird. In keeping with his number, he was looking for women to take part in threesomes. He promised discretion and enjoyment with himself and another woman, and asked whether Selena was interested. One look from her and I laughed and hit delete again.
Then came mystery guy number four. He seemed half decent, at least on paper, a good catch in fact. Early thirties, been out of a long-term relationship four years now, no kids, stable job in Boston and was looking for like-minded woman to have some fun with.
"What do you think?" I asked her.